


Eventide

by AriesOnMars



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesOnMars/pseuds/AriesOnMars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The perpetual twilight on the planet Kalliu blurs the lines between light and dark and the Ghost crew suffers for it. In the unending dusk Ezra finds someone who can relate to the unique challenges he faces as a hidden padawan--at least, he thinks he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

For the first time in as long as he could remember Ezra missed seeing the stars. When he had moved to the old communications tower on Lothal, well away from light pollution of any sort, he could look up at the sky and watch stars glittering in the distance as far as he could see. Once they reminded him of a scattering of industrial diamonds in appearance and worth, incredibly valuable to the people who needed them but useless to someone like him. Now, after he's been able to fly up above the atmosphere of planets and see the stars glowing brightly and without any distortion, he knew that they were so much more. Not little glittering bits to be used and tossed aside by the Empire once they lost their usefulness, like the diamond tips to drills, but things that were alive in their own right, and things that allowed through their mere existence the lives of so many more.

 

But tonight, like the past week of nights, he looked up to the sky and saw nothing. Well... not nothing. There was certainly something above him, and that was the problem. Kalliu was a planet that had nearly more foliage than animal life, and the most impressive flora rose up in huge towering trees that dangled down thick vines and spread out huge light-blocking leaves. During the daylight hours the sunlight was so filtered through those leaves that it resembled a green perpetual twilight from the moment the sun rose to the time it set and the forests were bathed in darkness again. It had taken a few days for Ezra to get used to the lack of any real sunlight, not just because the dim light made him feel tired and lazy, but because even the night was filled with the same dim light. There was dangling moss that would burst into a bouquet of multicolored luminescence when disturbed. There were insects that lit themselves up like flecks of fire as they flew upward in a spiraling pattern. Hunting the insects were little creatures, about the size of Loth-rats and close to the same look, with huge wings almost twice the size of the body that glowed faintly in the membrane. The glowing lights of the night nearly matched the dull green light of the day and Ezra had almost given up on trying to figure out what time it was on the planet. There were a few cues he could use, though. Species that developed here, and the only native sentient species, were mostly nocturnal. When the native inhabitants and the wildlife started stirring it meant the faint green light was gone and the night was on them. Although Ezra couldn't tell the point of only being awake at night when it was all dusk anyway.

 

Kalliu had no use whatsoever to the Empire. That wasn't a hyperbole, it literally was useless. What minerals it might have had were in such small batches and unrefined to the point that it would have cost more to take the time to dig them out of the planet than to go without. The planet was lush and fertile, but any farms that were made were demolished. It wasn't from the Kallilo, the sentient species that called this place home. They offered no resistance to the invaders or against the razing of the dark forests. It was the planet itself that rebelled. The worst weed on the land, the wyzu, could grow up from the ground and take over acres in a night. It was nearly impossible to predict where it would come up and harder to stop as the plant was usually spread not from seeds but from runners from a mother plant. Wyzu flourished in the underground waterways that ran beneath Kalliu's surface. The weed both sucked in nutrition while it provided a way to brace the waterways and force the ever-growing expansion of them, giving the plant and water a symbiotic relationship. It was the sort of willing takeover that the Empire would have envied if it hadn't been the cause of the destruction of their farms and factories. On the planet it seemed the only safe structures were the trees, great spindly-looking things that fanned out with crisscrossing branches that could be safely walked and built on. The Empire hadn't had any interest in putting their factories into the trees and had used the failed farmland to build them. The wyzu waterways had been crushed under the weight of the buildings, and great sinkholes had appeared to drag the metal structures into their graves. The Ghost had flown over what was left of one of the factories when they had come to the planet, and it was a humbling experience. The metal and glass had been ripped apart, there were huge tendrils coming out from the mud pit and it looked like each tendril had grabbed a chunk of the building and wrenched it apart. The failed factory had seemed frozen in a moment of agony, but the fact was the destruction hadn't ended, it was simply so slow it seemed to be standing still. Kalliu had won a fretful peace since then. At the moment the Empire had better things to do than to worry about one planet that, politically, had offered no resistance. It wouldn't last, though. Even if the planet managed to chase off the Empire they would be back one day.

 

That peace, though, was what had made Kalliu a haven for those running and in hiding. It was barely on any star charts, it was never mentioned on the HoloNews, it had no official trade, and it flourished in the benign neglect the Empire had left it in. Dozens of different sentient species could be seen a day, walking in the high-above cities that were hewn out of living plants and timber. As they had with the Empire the Kallilo had welcomed visitors and refugees with open arms. Those who wouldn't bring trouble with them were brought in and never questioned over why they were there or what they were doing. Ezra had joked that the feline-looking people were almost asking to be messed with, but Zeb had whacked the back of his head and pulled him to look into the distance. There, far away in the green haze of what passed for day in the city, were forms dangling from the wrapped and tangled vines. The wyzu, the vines that draped from the trees and lived in the ground, were used for executions. The plant grew so fast that it could be tied firmly around a neck, and in an hour it would have tightened to the point of strangling the convict. After that they were left alone. The people could struggle if they thought it would help, they could scream for help, but more often than not they would either be strangled or lose their footing and break their neck. The wyzu was undisturbed by the death it caused, and if anything it had learned to use the offering it was given. Vines would wrap around arms and legs of the victim of their own accord after a few days as if drawn to the rotting meat. It would pull the body apart to drop the chunks down to the muddy forest floor below where the bones and flesh would sink down and fertilize the trees that made up the city, and the wyzu that had killed them. Ezra hadn't joked that the Kallilo were pushovers after that. They, like the planet, didn't stop whatever destructive things that wanted to come in. They simply ripped the intruders apart afterwards when they disagreed with the damage that was caused.

 

The Ghost rested in a flat, wide expanse of interlocking branches at the moment. It was the Deep City's version of a hangar, the Ghost wasn't the only ship resting there, and they weren't the only crew that was staying in their ships until they were ready to leave. It unnerved more than a few people, and Ezra could see the same expressions on others that the Ghost's crew had worn when they first came here. People would step out onto the mess of branches as though they expected to fall straight through them. They would look around at the other ships with worry, and then glance over the edge of the hangar to the start of the city below. Everyone was convinced that their ship would be the one to rip the branches apart and crash down into the civilization. Some people didn't take the risk and after a few hours to restock they'd leave. The ones that stayed usually were there to hide from something, although those that expected to find serenity would lose it abruptly when they finally saw the executed dangling from the vines far off. Kalliu had managed to avoid the Empire's corruption for now but that in no way meant it was pure.

 

Ezra sighed, looked to the starless canopy above him, and decided to do something with his night. Kanan and Hera were out to find anyone else that might have been hiding for the same reason they were, rebels or revolutionaries hidden to protect their lives. Kanan didn't say it specifically to Ezra, but he had mentioned in quiet to Hera that Kalliu might offer a good place to hide for anyone else who was Force sensitive. It had little Empire surveillance and the general consensus of the people was to leave each other alone and that secrets were best left buried. Ezra overheard him, but he hadn't been sure how to feel about it. Kanan wasn't looking for another teacher to try to push Ezra onto, he knew that, but what if it wasn't a Jedi Kanan was looking for? What if it was another student? Ezra didn't want to have to share his Master, and he didn't want to have to worry about failing next to someone who was better at this.

 

Ezra turned, crouched to grip the edge of the twisted, knotted branches of the perch he had been on, and swung himself off of it. For an exhilarating moment after he let go he was falling, the fear prickling in the back of his mind that he wouldn't land right, but he'd been doing this for the past couple of days after seeing some other kids do something similar, and he landed on the walkway with a grunt. Someone yelped from behind him but he didn't bother to look back. It was funny to see someone look from him and up to the canopy nearly twenty feet above him sometimes, but he was still sulking in his own bad mood. For the first time he really felt useless. With a small Imperial presence there was less of a demand for credits, and the city worked off more of a bartering system than most. Services could buy goods directly, or if they offered their services to other off-worlders then they could get a couple of credits. Sabine could sell her abilities as a translator to those who would need it. Chopper could do minor repairs, although he complained endlessly about it. Zeb weirdly enough was the best at navigating the walkways and often-vertical transit the Kallilo used. Lasats weren't built exactly like Kallilo but the main things that helped them get around, clawed fingers and paw-pad feet with toes that could spread wide and get a good grip on the branches, were shared between the two species. Beside them Zeb looked odd, he was too tall, too broad, tailless, and he was missing the extra pairs of eyes the Kallilo had in their chests and backs, but he was able to do errands just as well as the ones that had been raised in the trees. It was, surprisingly, an ability that was worth more than the others and Zeb had nearly singlehandedly restocked their wares.

 

For the Padawan, though, there was little to do. After seeing the punishments the people were willing to give out Kanan had forbid Ezra from stealing anything. Even with the ignore-everything attitude from the planet Ezra wasn't going to have Jedi training in the middle of Deep City. His lessons were now just meditation in Kanan's room, and he was getting sick of it. What was the point of coming to an essentially Empire-free place if they were just going to keep acting like they were still surrounded? Ezra perched on the edge of the walkway and peered down into the marketplace. If nothing else he was used to this feeling, looking down from above to see what was going on below. The only thing really strange was that nobody said anything about it, because there were a lot of people doing the same. Looking up or down to the other levels was the same in this city as looking across a street was in any other. He watched the people walking about, a few of them with the shaky, hesitant steps that said they were newcomers to the suspended city. He frowned a little as he watched a Devaronian, something was odd about her, but what he wasn't sure yet. She looked perfectly normal, black clothes over tan-and-white fur from what he could see. She crouched to pick something up off the ground, glanced at a booth, and tossed the nut she was holding as subtly as she could. Ezra laughed as the shopkeeper looked towards the rustle in the leaves near his stand, but the boy's mirth died in his throat. While the shopkeeper was looking away the Devaronian held her hand up and flicked her wrist, and one of the neatly-stacked fruit shot from the table and to her hand. She grinned, her fangs visible even from where Ezra was watching her, and she tucked the fruit into her cloak as the shopkeeper cussed his suddenly-falling wares. She started away and Ezra got up to follow her as far as he could on the walkway he was on before he'd have to jump down to hers.

 

Kanan was searching for Force-sensitives, but it looked like Ezra had found one first. Oh, he was going to brag about it later.


	2. Chapter 2

For a little while Ezra hadn't had any real problems following the girl. She was quick on her feet, but she wasn't running, and from Ezra's perch on the level above her there was nowhere she could really hide from him. There was a moment when she stopped and Ezra went still too, sure that she was going to notice him. After all, now that he knew what he was looking for, he could sense her. She was like a low sound just on the edge of his hearing, like when a Loth-cat would hiss or growl in the grasses on Lothal. Just enough to let him know it was there, but not enough to let him know where it was exactly. The Devaronian didn't look back at him, though. She started back on her path at the same pace as before and Ezra followed from above.

 

The trip went from going towards the center of the city to heading to the outskirts, where the little fire-bugs were slowly replaced with ones that were far larger and scuttled along the walkways and trees. The flying rats were still around, but not as numerous like they were closer in towards civilization. From above the sounds of the huge leaves bending and moving grew, and Ezra saw long, spindly limbs like tree branches suck up into the canopy above as he came closer to them. It was getting harder to keep following the Devaronian as she went farther away from the city. The luminescent moss was more sparse here, and didn't have nearly as many things bothering it to make it keep glowing. The pathways this far away weren't nearly as well maintained. They were still sturdy, but the people that tended to the plants and bent them, wrapped them, forced them to grow strong and straight weren't as careful in their craft here. Sometimes Ezra had to go up until he nearly lost the girl, and then back down so steeply he had to hold onto the branches to keep from sliding. During one long trip down Ezra lost the girl he had been following. He looked around, but he couldn't see the light brown or white fur anymore. But she was still close, he knew it, he just couldn't see her. Ezra swung over the walkway and dropped down to the lower one, stumbling because of the drop being much different from the ones he did on the neatly ordered city walkways. When Ezra straightened up there was a sudden powerful hit on his back and he fell forward, winded.

 

"What are you following me for?" the voice was barely more than a high snarl from behind him. Ezra twisted to look back at the voice and at the girl, and he almost didn't see her. She had loosened her black clothes and let down long sleeves that had been tied up to hide the pale color of her fur with a hood now up that hid her face. The black blended in with the dark colors of the wilder portion of the forest. Ezra, who had been looking for tawny-brown and white, had been blind to it.

 

"Saw--you..." Ezra gasped as he tried to catch his breath. It felt like there was something pressing on his back and squishing the air out of him.

 

"I saw you too!" In the dim glow from a hanging clump of moss Ezra could see the glint of the Devaronian's fangs as she spoke. They were big, really big, even for a female of her species. "You were following me since the main square!"

 

"No..." Ezra pushed himself up slowly. It was harder than it should have been, the weight was still on his back, but slowly it felt like he could shove through it and shake it off. The girl took a step back from him as he got to his feet. "Saw you before, in the market. I saw you steal something."

 

"I didn't..." the girl's voice faltered and she stepped back again. Ezra could suddenly breathe easier and stand straight. She had lost her concentration and the power she had been exerting over him was gone.

 

"Yeah, you did," Ezra almost moved closer but he thought better of it, the Devaronian looked ready to bolt if he moved. So instead he raised his hand up. In the folds of her clothes he could see a small curve of red and green and he pulled on it. The girl jumped back--but her fruit remained where it was. She froze as she watched it, and then suddenly grabbed it hard and yanked it away. Ezra just let her take it.

 

"Are you going to hurt me now?"

 

"What?" Ezra frowned. "Of course not! Why would I?"

 

The girl shifted in place, obviously uncomfortable, but she lost some of the aggression in her stance as she watched him. "What about my Master?"

 

"I'm not going to hurt anybody!" Ezra said, annoyed. But a thought came to him, a thought he had himself not that long ago, and he added, "I'm not going to try to replace you or anything. I have my own Master."

 

At that the girl really did visibly relax, and she reached up to pull her hood back from her face. She wasn't quite a human's definition of pretty. Her fur pattern was attractive but her fangs were overly large and tucked her bottom lip in weirdly that exaggerated her weak chin. The fur that framed her bare cheeks make them look a bit too large, and so she had a sort of awkward and top-heavy look. Her eyes were like burnished gold, just too dark to be yellow and too light to be brown.

 

"You shouldn't be here," she said in an attempt to sound calm and in control. She wasn't managing it well, and her hands shook as she dug her claws into her fruit to tear it in half. "My Master said it isn't safe to be around another pair. We're always moving."

 

"Well, it's kind of hard to follow that rule if we don't know who's where, isn't it?" Ezra smiled a little.

 

The Devaronian looked up at him and managed a smile of her own as she nodded, "I suppose."

 

"Besides, do you always follow the rules?" Ezra took a step closer to her. For a moment the girl seemed to be considering running off, but she smiled a little wider instead. She ripped the fruit in half fully and tossed one half of it to Ezra, who caught it easily even if it made part of his hand sticky.

 

"When it suits me." The Devaronian held her own fruit half up and bit oddly into it as she worked a stone out of the flesh with a long fang. She spat it aside and took a bite. Ezra bit into his own half a little more carefully in case there was another seed waiting to break his teeth.

 

"I'm--" Ezra started, but he stopped when the girl suddenly held her hand up.

 

"Don't," she said firmly, and she glanced around. "Don't tell me your name. Not your real one, at least. If we're really not supposed to meet each other, then this will protect both of us."

 

Ezra nodded. It wasn't that odd, after all the Ghost crew all did the same so they couldn't be found later. He thought a moment and said, "I'm Dev, then."

 

"Dev," the girl smiled, although it was strained and worried, as though she suspected Ezra had ignored the warning and told her his real name anyway. "Call me... Yizi."

 

"Yizi?" Ezra couldn't help but laugh, it sounded ridiculously fake even though he already knew it was.

 

"It's the fruit we're eating," the Devaronian held up her half of the fruit. "Dev isn't any better."

 

Ezra snorted and took another bite, "Alright, fine. Yizi."

 

\- - -

 

Yizi was better at climbing the trees than Ezra was, but it turned out that he was better at navigating them. She had the habit of circling around the tree trunks as she went up higher and it disoriented her while Ezra climbed slower but in a more steady and direct pace. While Ezra was under her he had seen her feet, she wasn't wearing boots just cloth wrappings around the middle of her foot to protect the furless sole, but it meant her toes could grip the bark better and the claws on them could dig in to help make her a little steadier when she climbed. The third time his foot slipped on a branch Ezra entertained the thought of copying her, but he never did. He didn't have claws, and he didn't want to risk something cutting his feet as he climbed. Yizi clambered across a branch and jumped onto another tree and Ezra followed. It reminded him a lot of climbing over the rooftops in the city, and he did feel a bit of pride when Yizi would stumble on her branch and make enough noise to rouse the wildlife around them but Ezra could land quietly and easily. She still beat him to the top of the tree, though, and just her wrapped feet were visible from between the thick stems of leaves. Ezra shoved one aside as me moved higher, they were heavy and thick, and felt weirdly like waxy skin because of the size of them, but eventually he broke through.

 

Above them the sky glittered in a brilliance he'd never seen before. The starts were incredibly bright, more than Ezra remembered them being. The only think marring the view of the stars was Kalliu's great ring stretching in a huge arch against the sky. It didn't distract from the beauty of the night, though. It seemed to highlight the stars that glittered beyond its dust and ice composition, and provided a frame for the darkness and glittering specks in the sky. Light came only from the shepherd moons that patrolled the ring and kept it in line, two balls of waxing light that lit up the huge leaves around them.

 

"I missed the stars," Ezra sighed as he leaned against a huge leaf. It was twice the size wide as he was tall and barely moved with his weight pressed on it.

 

"I hate it here," Yizi said up to the sky. She reached and hauled herself up over another leaf, and in the process left deep gashes in the green flesh from her claws. "It's always dark, and hot, and _wet_. You probably don't care, but it gets in my fur and it feels like I haven't been dry for weeks."

 

Ezra didn't say anything. Zeb had the same complaints before about fur and humid conditions. Ezra had pointed out to Zeb before that none of the Kallilo seemed bothered by the damp forest, but now that he was hearing it again from a Devaronian girl the boy wondered if maybe it was that the Kallilo were water resistant and not that they were simply better at keeping complaints to themselves.

 

"Why do we even have to be here?" Yizi sighed and dragged her fingers down another leaf, leaving huge gouges in it that dripped faintly.

 

"My Master said it'd be a good place for us to hide, and anyone else who could use the Force," Ezra said, and while he could probably think up a fake name for Kanan too it seemed easier to just call him Master when talking about him to Yizi.

 

"I don't _want_ to hide," Yizi growled low and cut through the leaf again. This time she managed to break through it fully and the wound oozed chloroplast in the moonlight. After a moment she sighed and looked back up at the ring in the sky. "But I don't want to be gutted either."

 

"You really think that'll happen?"

 

"Maybe," Yizi muttered. "It's better to assume the worst, right? If someone finds me and my Master here I might be dead. Or if the people around here suddenly decide they want to try to get rid of a problem."

 

There was a venom in her voice that made Ezra twitch. He looked back at her and in the moonlight he saw more of her fangs than before as she snarled quietly to the stars. Ezra felt a weird twisting in his gut, something he wasn't sure about. Was it pity because she was so nervous? Or guilt over being more sure of himself than she was? Or was it something else?

 

"I won't tell anyone about you," Ezra said after a long while. Yizi looked back at him, her eyes gleaming in the darkness. Ezra looked away from her and back at the moons instead. "So you don't need to worry about me making things worse."

 

"Thanks," Yizi's voice was softer this time, with most of the malice drained from it. "I won't tell anybody about you, either."


	3. Chapter 3

"You're keeping something from me."

 

Ezra grimaced and tried to sit a little more determinedly in the meditation pose Kanan had taught him. He couldn't answer him if he was meditating, right? But he wasn't really meditating, and Ezra could feel Kanan watching him, and eventually he gave up and sighed. "I'm not _keeping_ anything from you, I just..."

 

It was true, though. Ezra had kept his word to Yizi and didn't tell anyone about her, even after he got back to the Ghost late enough that everyone was worried about him. He didn't have a good explanation for where he was and his hair was full of twigs and broken bark from the trees. He hadn't answered questions that he should have and when he had a free moment he went to the room he shared with Zeb, claiming to be tired, and pretended to be asleep in his bunk until he was left alone. Nobody was fooled, though, and now Ezra felt trapped when he looked at Kanan.

 

"Last night, I..." Ezra trailed off. He knew he could trust Kanan but at the same time what Yizi asked wasn't that weird. Hera did similar things sometimes, she'd only tell people as much as they needed to know at a time, and if there were things you didn't know it was probably just safer for everyone that way. But Kanan was watching him in a way that hinted that he expected Ezra to have messed something up, and the Padawan wanted him to know that wasn't the case.

 

"Last night I met a girl," Ezra finished lamely. He looked down at his lap and shifted awkwardly. "She led me up above the canopy and we looked at the stars and talked, that was it. But she doesn't want anyone to know about her."

 

"Oh," Kanan said, and after a moment he smiled and chuckled. "Then we can tell everyone there isn't anything to worry about."

 

Ezra looked back up at him at that and returned Kanan's smile hesitantly, "Can we not tell anybody about her, though? I promised her I wouldn't, and she's worried about being found here."

 

"There's safety in numbers."

 

"Except when there isn't," said Ezra as he shifted some. Eventually he uncurled from the meditation pose and just sat across from Kanan. "It isn't like she's alone, she said she has a--she has someone with her."

 

Kanan watched him for a little while, wearing a small frown as he thought it over, but finally he nodded, "Alright. I'll tell everyone you're fine, but I won't say why."

 

"Thanks, Kanan," Ezra grinned and he finally felt more at ease in Kanan's room. When he had first come in he thought he was going to be interrogated, and that sort of happened, but it ended up alright.

 

"Maybe now you'll be able to relax enough to actually meditate."

 

Ezra nodded and tucked his legs back under himself, settling down once more to meditate. Kanan was right, with the weight of his conscious eased Ezra was able to relax fully and slip into meditation without his worries chasing each other in his mind.

 

\- - -

 

Ezra and Yizi hadn't made any plans to meet up when they left each other last, and so it was a few days until he saw her again. This time she had been on the higher canopy above him, and her method of getting his attention was to drop a nut from the level above to hit him on the head. Ezra swore as he looked up to the above level although he hadn't expected to see anyone, and he froze when he saw the white-and-tan face grinning down at him.

 

"You almost slip?" said Sabine, and her voice brought Ezra back down to their level. He looked at her just in time to see Sabine give him an odd look and glance up to the walkway above them, but Yizi was already gone.

 

"Uh, yeah," Ezra shrugged and glanced around. Yizi wanted his attention, so the Devaronian was probably hanging around still and waiting for Ezra to be alone. "Hey, you've got this, right?"

 

"We're not even halfway done yet," Sabine said as she took the datapad Ezra was waving at her.

 

"Yeah, but we've got a few days to do this, right?"

 

"Technically," Sabine eyed him and Ezra started running down the walkway before he had to give a better explanation for himself.

 

"Then I'll see you later!"

 

The Padawan didn't have a good idea of where he was going but he didn't really need one. He just needed to get away from people for the most part, like how Yizi had led him away from Deep City. Every instinct Ezra had was telling him to go up, towards the filtered green light that came down from the canopy... but that wasn't where Yizi was going to be. Ezra didn't question how he knew that, he'd gotten better at trusting himself and the Force, and so he made his way down towards the forest floor as he went. The faint green light was lost quickly and the dim light was only cast by bugs that crept over the gnarled tree trunks and the mosses that grew over them. Eventually the interlocking branches stopped being neat and orderly. Most of the branches were broken, but where they weren't the surroundings trees seemed to have merged together. The above levels had looked pristine compared to this. What were well-manicured branches that were woven together a little more firmly by the city caretakers above were twisted and knotted slabs of wood down below. Some of the branches creaked badly when Ezra walked on him, an audible threat to drop him down into the rancid muddy forest floor below.

 

"Who was that?"

 

Ezra looked up as Yizi slid down a huge tree trunk, her claws leaving deep gashes in the bark as she let gravity do the bulk of the work for her. She dropped down the last couple feet and shook her hands to get rid of the scraps of wood as she came closer to him.

 

"The Mandilorian?" Ezra smiled, although it was weird to have to remind himself not to use Sabine's name or 'Specter 5.' "She's my friend."

 

"You have a lot of friends," Yizi grinned back at him, and even though it was wide enough that her teeth glittered in the bioluminescence from the moss it still looked off.

 

"What, you don't?" Ezra shrugged and decided not to comment that he didn't really have any friends until recently. "You could have met her."

 

Yizi just shook her head and sighed as she walked to the edge of the branches. She looked down into the dark muck below and Ezra followed to peer into it with her. Something was moving down below and rooting through the mud but Ezra wasn't curious about what it was.

 

"I shouldn't even be here with _you_ ," she finally said. "But I really need help. I need to get something for my Master."

 

"What, like a present?" Ezra laughed. Yizi snorted and shoved him a little too hard, and he had a moment where he thought he was going to topple down into the mud and encounter the rooting beast there. When Ezra finally got his feet under him properly he took a few steps back from the edge and from Yizi  so she couldn't do it again.

 

"No, like a test," if the Devaronian noticed Ezra's retreat she didn't acknowledge it. "I have to prove I've been learning, she said she won't keep teaching me if I don't get any better. Said there wasn't a point to it."

 

Yizi slouched and crossed her arms. Ezra couldn't see her expression from where he had gotten away from her. With a frown he said, "That can't be true. I mean, she picked you to teach you, right?"

 

"She could get someone new," Yizi grumbled and crouched down to sit and watch the mud-beast below. Ezra hesitated but he came close to her again slowly, and moved to sit down.

 

"How do you know you can't do... whatever it is you have to do?" Ezra asked. Yizi glanced at him with a frown and then uncurled from herself enough to reach out a hand. Everything was still for a moment, and then there was a loud cry from below them as the creature Ezra hadn't wanted to meet was wrenched up from the forest floor. It dangled awkwardly and horribly, like the bodies of the convicts in the trees, but it thrashed in the invisible grip instead of hanging still. It was hardly in the air for a few seconds before Yizi gasped and the beast crashed back down to the ground. It roared again and ran, and with a splash it dove into an opening to the underground waterways and was gone.

 

"See?" Yizi sighed. Ezra wasn't sure what he was supposed to have seen other than Yizi trying to hold up an animal about the size of either of them. He had been glad when she let it go, honestly. Yizi didn't notice and continued on, "I can't hold my concentration, that's why I have to grab things so fast, but I know you can do it longer. You showed me."

 

"Yeah but I didn't grab an animal!" Ezra snapped at her. Yizi flinched and turned to look at him with an expression of mixed hurt and anger.

 

"Fine," she snarled harshly at him and stood up so suddenly Ezra was worried for a moment that she'd lose her balance and fall. "If you can do it I can do it. It can't be that hard."

 

Ezra glared hard at her as she stalked back to one of the trees and started to climb. Yizi's claws ripped out chunks of bark and sent them raining down as she moved higher. For a while Ezra stayed in the rancid darkness, he didn't want to have to encounter her again, but when he was sure she'd gone he found his own way back up into the canopy of the trees and the faint green light that lingered there still.


	4. Chapter 4

Despite his determination to forget about the Devaronian Ezra was still sulking in the common room waiting for when he could go to bed. Kanan was trying to reestablish a proper sleeping schedule, the only one who was still functioning normally was Chopper and that was because he didn't function off of light cues. Kanan, Ezra, and Sabine were all having some variation of the same problem. The constant darkness was making them lethargic and it convinced their brains that it was too late to do anything worthwhile. Zeb's schedule had nearly flipped around entirely, and he was working at the same time as the Kallilo now. It was hard to keep everything coordinated when one of their members only really had an overlap of a few hours when he interacted with them. By far Hera was faring the worst, though. While the Lasat had changed his sleeping schedule and the humans were trying to sleep constantly the Twi'lek had seemed to stop sleeping entirely. Every so often she'd doze off for a few minutes, but it was never in her bed when she was ready for it. It would be in the galley during a meal, or if she sat down to rest since the insomnia was sapping her strength. Her skin was paler than usual because of it, her eyes would become unfocused now and then, and she wasn't quite as good at concentrating. But still she pushed through it and she did the job that was required of her.

 

"We can't stay here for too much longer," Kanan said firmly as he looked over them. Ezra was visibly sulking, but it was easy to assume that he was like Sabine and getting irritable with the constant feeling that the day had passed them by without ever actually starting.

 

"It's not that bad," Zeb shrugged. His day had just consisted of staying awake beyond the point where he wanted to go to his own bunk. Sabine shot him a look and Zeb straightened up like she had threatened him. "It'd be nice to go somewhere I can actually dry out, though."

 

"If you're doing it for me..." Hera trailed off, her eyelids drooped, and her head resting too heavily on her intertwined fingers. Kanan put his hand on her back gently, it had just become easier to get her to focus again with physical contact, and she looked up at him.

 

"I'm doing this for all of us. We can't function in the dark like this, most things can't. We'll finish what we need to do and leave as soon as we can. Are there any objections?" Kanan looked over everyone when he asked, but his gaze lingered on Ezra. After a moment Ezra shook his head.

 

"No. I want to get out of here," the Padawan said. From either side of him Zeb and Sabine agreed, and Hera nodded as she leaned against Kanan.

 

\- - -

 

When morning came--or at least what passed as morning for the crew--they set about putting their few affairs in order so they could leave. Sabine had a few tabs to collect on, and Kanan was helping Hera to make sure the ship was ready to go. The past few days of immobility had invited wyzu to creep and cling to the landing gear of the ship and Hera wasn't up to the physical exertion of yanking it off and away by herself. Zeb and Ezra had the task of taking some of their perishable supplies to the market and exchanging them for something longer-lasting. It had made sense at the time to take fresh fruit, vegetables and meat when they could while they thought they were going to be there for a while, but they couldn't be sure of how long they would travel after they left. Having too much that could rot wasn't going to be good for anything or anyone. It at least gave Ezra something to do, though, and he was enjoying himself haggling with anyone who showed an interest in what he had.

 

"Listen, I want to help you, I really do. But you see the big guy there?" Ezra dropped his voice in a confidential whisper as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Zeb, and the Rodian woman he was talking to leaned closer to hear him a little better. "He has to be the most stubborn thing in the galaxy. He sets a price, and I _have_ to go by it. But... I mean, I really want you to take this, so maybe I can drop the price by ten percent. Just enough that he won't notice, but it's still a good deal."

 

The deal was, in fact, not particularly good at all. But Zeb had the nice no-nonsense look about him that could convince a lot of people to think the worst of him, especially when compared to a friendly human kid, and that helped to distract people from the specifics going on. It helped the woman was one of many who had freshly landed in the city and immediately decided that she didn't want to be there any longer than was absolutely necessary. As such she was still carrying and expecting to use credits, and she wasn't willing to wander into the marketplace proper to where the better deals were. She had taken her money out and was about to hand it over when Ezra suddenly froze.

 

Something was wrong. Something very close was very, _very_ wrong. The moment of warning he had before the branches under them shifted was enough time for him to grab Zeb's arm and pull.

 

"We need to get out of here!" Ezra yelled as the living wood under them creaked and groaned. Zeb moved after Ezra as the boy ran, the Lasat not even pausing as he reached out and grabbed up the Rodian woman who froze when the tree started crying out. In a moment the whole structure was lurching as one of the trees started sagging down towards the forest floor. Interlocked branches screamed and snapped as their support wrenched them down. The place the three of them had been standing on was one of the ones that ripped apart spectacularly. Branches splintered and rained down in chunks as the weaving worked itself free. The people who had been near them had taken heed of Ezra's sudden warning and had fled with them, not as quickly but enough to avoid falling down to their doom. The sound of the living wood pulling itself apart was deafening but it didn't last long.

 

When Ezra and Zeb had managed to get onto a walkway that was sturdier they looked back. What had happened nobody knew, but one of the huge trees was now sagging down  and had turned the edge of the marketplace into a cone dipping down toward it. The woven-together branches were the only reason the tree hadn't fallen over completely. A good few places on the walkway were ripped part with jagged holes opening down to lower levels. From the sound of chaos every road connected to the tree, both above and below them, had been damaged just as badly.

 

"What happened?" Zeb set the Rodian down, but she had lost her pervious reservations about the Lasat and didn't seem to want to let go of her savior.

 

"I don't know," Ezra eased down to look through one of the huge holes ripped through the walkway to see if people were alright below them. He couldn't see anyone in immediate danger from this angle. The people below were still comprehending what had just happened around them, although a few were yelling for help or instructions. Ezra started to pull back and froze when something caught his eye. There, far off and running farther away, was a white and tan figure wrapped in a black cloak. Ezra felt his stomach drop about a second before the breaking tree lurched again and he had to scramble up to safety.

 

\- - -

 

"We're grounded," Hera said simply as the Ghost crew collected in the cargo bay.

 

"Well, _technically_ ," Ezra started, but he was hushed by Kanan before he could finish his quip.

 

"I'm not surprised," Zeb said where he was perched on a crate. "What happened down there wasn't natural. They're probably looking for whoever caused it."

 

He had been called in to help clear the wreckage by one of the Kallilo that had hired him before, and after trying to refuse a couple of times the Lasat had eventually given in. Pay was nonexistent, but by going Zeb had managed to get a good idea of what had happened. Unless someone was particularly good at scaling the trees in a timely and safe manner they weren't accepted as volunteers, and that cut sentients that were working with the ruined walkways down severely.

 

"You're sure about that?" Kanan sighed as he shifted from foot to foot. He looked at Sabine who was looking away from the rest of the group, shoulders hunched.

 

"Yeah, I am," Zeb shifted and glanced to Sabine, then away again. "It looked like it was blown apart from the inside. Didn't look like any kind of rot in the tree. Nothing looked wrong, other than the fact it was in huge chunks of wood all over the place instead of being where it was supposed to be."

 

"An animal, maybe?" Kanan looked away from Sabine, and when he did she grimaced.

 

"Sounds more like an explosive," Hera said, and she sounded too tired for there to be any malice in the comment. Even so Sabine leaned on the wall a little farther away from the rest of the crew and crossed her arms like she was guarding herself from any accusations. If Sabine hadn't been anxious from the feeling of constant lethargy she would have been more relaxed. Sure, an unknown detonation nearby would bring the explosive expert into question, but the crew knew her. They knew she wouldn't do something she wasn't going to be proud of later.

 

"Nah," Zeb shook his head, and that was enough to get Sabine to look up at him. "It sure looked like an explosion, but there weren't any traces of one anywhere. Nothing was smoking, or on fire, or even scorched. If it was a bomb it isn't one I've seen before."

 

Finally Sabine joined the conversation, "If it wasn't an explosive, what else could cause that kind of damage?"

 

Ezra felt guilt gnaw in his gut. He knew what could cause that much damage. He looked at Zeb and Sabine, who were puzzling over the question, to Hera who was determined to stay awake, and finally up to Kanan. Ezra's suspicion was confirmed there. There was no questioning look on his teacher's face. Kanan knew exactly what could cause so much damage but leave no obvious trace of itself, the only thing Kanan didn't know was _who_ had channeled it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally posted Chapter 3 twice, Chapter 4 is now in it's proper spot!

Ezra grunted as he hauled up another chunk of wood from the volunteer below him. He couldn't go down to where the actual damage was in the tree, but there was enough going on all over the now dead plant that he didn't need to. Almost immediately the Kallilo had started dismembering the tree, stations were set up to saw through the wood that was forcing the walkways down and to cut apart the tree so it could be transported. The transport was a slow-moving but huge creature, it dangled up-side down by overgrown claws on its six feet as it moved through the canopy. The fur was dark brown and even in that wyzu grew, sucking up moisture from the dense fur and dangling down from the beast's back and legs. A harness had been strapped to it, a huge platform that dangled down from its back where the wood would be chucked onto so it could be moved away and refined into lumber elsewhere. Ezra had only seen one of them once so far, when he first came down it had been lumbering away from the group, and as the second one came by he was sure the wreckage would be too much to be transported. The wood the volunteers had collected so far was in piles as close to the edge of the walkway as they could go, and the pile Ezra, Kanan and Sabine had made was well taller than Ezra by now.

 

"How are we even supposed to get the wood on there? Chuck it?" Ezra grumbled as he yanked up another log. He stumbled and Kanan grabbed the back of his vest to haul him back and away from the edge.

 

"I can ask," Sabine looked over to the approaching beast, then to one of the Kallilo. There was a pause when she touched the female's shoulder and Sabine frowned, but finally she asked her after a moment.

 

The Kallilo's ear twitched and she smiled, speaking much faster than Sabine had as she answered. Sabine was still learning the language, but Ezra wasn't really sure why since it wasn't used anywhere else in the galaxy--or _how_ she was learning it. The Kallilo talked so fast and it seemed like they strung syllables together that didn't belong that way. Ezra couldn't tell where one word stopped and another started. The few times he heard one speak Basic they tended to run the words together to the point where a whole sentence could sound like one long and confusing word. Sabine thanked her and stepped away from the wood pile.

 

"Looks like we don't do anything. Volunteers just haul the wood, we don't put it on the transport," Sabine sighed as she stretched out her aching back. Kanan glanced down at the level just below them to make sure they weren't still be handed up debris and then did the same.

 

"I can't believe we're doing all of this for free," Ezra sighed as he sat on the edge of the walkway and let his feet dangle down. Truth was he knew why they were doing it. The hangar was locked down, and while volunteering to help clear the area wasn't compulsory the people that didn't offer to help were being looked into as the cause of the destruction. With four members of the Ghost crew helping the city their ship had been all but officially cleared.

 

Ezra flopped onto his back and watched the people above them. The woven branches had little to no space between them, definitely not enough to see people through, but the patches were different. Where the dying tree had been removed there had been huge holes, and in an effort to maintain the structure of the walkways netting was woven out of wyzu and worked into the patches. Despite the fact that the weed had been cut and then woven it still grew even as it died. Small, reaching vines had worked through the wood of the walkways and secured them, as well as binding the weed to itself and holding tight. The patch wouldn't last long, eventually the wyzu would get weaker as it rotted, but in the couple of weeks it would take for that to happen the tree's wood would be made into lumber to make a much more secure hold for the living and now dead branches. Far below them what was left of the living part of the tree was being examined. If there was a chance the severed trunk would continue to grow and replace itself it would be left to flourish. More likely the plant would need to be cut down to the roots and broken apart, and have a young tree transplanted to the spot to, eventually, take the place of it. Deep City was built to be able to handle one of the trees dying, but it hadn't had to deal with one coming to such a sudden end like this for a very long time.

 

Through the patches made of wyzu Ezra could watch the few people who dared to walk across the less stable plant. The vines only offered enough protection to keep from falling and they would sag with the traveler's weight. That would open the gaps in the vines a little more to see them easier. For the most part only the Kallilo walked on them, Ezra had seen more paws up there than anything else, but now and then there was the sole of a boot instead. For a moment there was something paler than the dark paw pads and boot soles, a flash of white between the vines. A bare foot with only wrappings protecting part of it.

 

"Hey, are we on a break right now?" Ezra tilted his head to look at Sabine.

 

"Yeah, until the yaen comes by and leaves."

 

"I'll be back, then," Ezra said as he pushed himself up. He wanted to check and see if it really was Yizi, and if it was... he had to know if she was the one who did that to the tree. There were times Ezra messed up his training too, but he never did anything that bad.

 

"Ezra," Kanan said firmly as he watched Ezra starting to the ladder they had used to get down to the ruined level. Ezra paused for a moment and looked back to him.

 

"I'll be back, don't worry," Ezra tried to grin reassuringly. He climbed the ladder as fast as he could, up to the level above them, and Kanan watched him go.

 

"You're worried, huh?" Sabine asked once Ezra was up on the other level and hurrying away.

 

"Yeah," Kanan muttered as he watched his Padawan leave.

 

\- - -

 

Like before Ezra had to follow Yizi for a while. Now that he knew what he was looking for he knew she had sensed him, and in turn had begun leading him away. He wondered for a moment if perhaps she had been doing this for a while, wandering and waiting to be noticed and followed by the right person. The time came when he saw the yaen, the huge upside-down creature that lumbered in the treetops and carried the lumber transport, and while it was obviously being loaded up he didn't start back yet. He'd be late, but Ezra had to know what was going on with the Devaronian girl. The farther from the city they traveled the more convinced he was that she had been the one to destroy the tree and the walkways that grew out from it. Out of hope he clung to the idea that she had made a mistake, a very big mistake, and fear was keeping her from admitting it to her Master and taking responsibility for it.

 

Yizi continued away from the city and Ezra followed. When he finally gave in to the urge to catch her quickly and started running instead of just walking at her pace she started to run too. She was determined to keep ahead of him. Even when he started running faster than a normal human should have been able to she was able to keep up with it. If anyone had been near them at that point they would have known the children weren't normal, but by the time they both started using the Force to enhance their abilities the human and Devaronian were far from civilization. Ezra leapt down from his walkway to the one Yizi was running on. He hit the branches awkwardly and went down, but with training he was better at adapting instantly and he tucked down, tumbling in a summersault so he could spring up and keep going without losing his momentum. Yizi ran on, putting on a new burst of speed at the warning lurch the walkway gave when Ezra had landed on it. She darted sharply left and he lost her behind a towering tree's vast trunk. He followed, the path and the speed, and for a brief moment it felt as though he didn't even need to breathe. His speed was barely connected to his body, it was beyond it, and with that feeling he had the overwhelming urge to keep running even after he caught up to Yizi. It was exhilarating, but in that moment he had lost why he was doing what he was doing. He had lost sight of his goal. He had lost his connection to the girl in front of him.

 

When Ezra turned the corner to continue past the tree's trunk it all ended. In just a moment his senses were overloaded and abruptly ceased. There was a flare of pain, a deafening sound, and then darkness.

 

\- - -

 

"Hey, wake up."

 

Ezra didn't want to obey. He wanted to curl up and go back to sleep, because in the haze of unconsciousness there was the promise that the splitting pain in his head would be eased.

 

"Come on, I know you're not dead."

 

He knew he wasn't dead either, but that didn't seem to matter to him, really. The pain was what mattered. Suddenly it flared to an unimaginable degree and he cried out. He didn't know what had done it at first, but he became aware of a pressure leaving his head and then something soft and sticky hitting his face. The smell of blood hit him. He finally slowly opened his eyes and looked up. Yizi was above him, the white fur on her hands stained red, and his hair hung in loose, wet clumps in front of his eyes. His head was bleeding, and she had yanked his hair up to look at him. The Devaronian grinned at him, her too-big fangs glittering in the light from a clump of glowing moss above them. Ezra winced at it and closed his eyes, even just that tiny bit of light in the darkness seemed too much for him to bear.

 

"Finally," she grinned wide. The sound felt like it ripped through Ezra's head and he tried to move away, to lie down to try to ease the pain in his head. He realized then that he couldn't lie down, he couldn't even move. He had been bound and was leaning back against a tree trunk. It wasn't the same one as he had turned around, however. He and Yizi were closer to the floor than they had been before. Ezra could smell the stinking muck below them and the humidity was nearly choking him. How far she had taken him, and why, he wasn't sure of. He didn't want to try to talk to ask her, either.

 

"I wanted you to see this," Yizi said, her voice had dropped a fraction of a pitch and Ezra hazarded another glance at her. He had hoped that, maybe, she would have realized the pain he was in. She didn't. She was grinning as though everything was right in the world as she produced a knife from inside of her cloak.


	6. Chapter 6

"What are you doing?" Ezra finally managed to say. The knife was gleaming in the sparse light and his attention kept getting drawn back to it. Yizi laughed, and it was an unnatural and harsh sound.

 

"I wanted you to see this," she repeated. She moved the knife to her other hand and reached up to grab Ezra's chin, forcing him to look into her eyes. "I wanted you to see that I'm better than you. I already proved it, you can hold things up for _longer_ , but me? You saw what I did! You were helping them clean it!"

 

Ezra hissed at the sudden rise in volume in her voice. He closed his eyes tight as it that might help him somehow. _Someone help me._

 

"Hey, look at me!"

 

_Kanan..._

 

Ezra's thoughts were suddenly silenced as Yizi shoved his head back to hit it against the tree trunk. Pain ripped through his mind and he cried out again, the sound pulled harshly from him like it was some sort of beast he had been trying to contain. It, like Yizi, only hurt him worse. Slowly he opened his eyes again and faced her. She looked from his eyes to his cheek, and she let go of his chin to slide her fingers along the twin scars on there. Her fingers smeared Ezra's blood against the healed wounds and gave them the appearance that they had been freshly reopened.

 

"What made these?" Yizi said it in a friendly tone, as thought she hadn't just cracked his head against wood or tied him up.

 

"Lightsaber," Ezra answered, his voice strangely flat and dark even to himself. Yizi grinned and laughed again, and she pulled back away from him.

 

"Lightsaber's too quick. My Master told me that," Yizi grinned proudly. She held up the knife and played with it, making it catch the meager light. "You get a scar without really feeling it at first, you only feel it after."

 

Ezra watched her with a frown. Too soon he knew what it was she was talking about and his stomach churned, "Yizi, don't."

 

As if in defiance of him she grabbed her upper lip and pressed the blade of the knife to her skin. Her hands were trembling but that didn't stop her, she pressed in the metal and with a sudden jerk ripped her lip apart. As soon as blood was spilling she cried out and curled up. The hand that had held her lip still was now pressed against the new wound, and the knife was held as far from her as possible. The gleaming blade was now partially covered in black blood. Ezra wasn't sure if Devaronians really did bleed black, or if it was just the lack of light that made it look that way.

 

"Yizi, stop!" Ezra winced at the sound of his own voice. His head hurt worse and he was confused now. What he thought was going to be the girl carving into him took a strange and somehow more horrific turn.

 

"No!" Yizi yelled back at him. Her voice was muffled behind her hand and the waver of pain underneath it warbled the word, but she was still understandable. "I'm not stopping. You-you have two scars? So I can have four... I can do more than you."

 

"Why?" Ezra couldn't wrap his mind around what was happening. At least, he didn't want to. He could feel a coldness as he watched her, and heard a discordant sound just beyond his hearing, there was a flash of _something_ in her iris as Yizi's eyes found his again. Everything in Ezra's senses were trying to tell him something about this girl that he just didn't want to accept. He had wanted a friend, someone who would understand the complaints he had but not fault him for them. The potential for what Yizi could have been had, ultimately, been worth far more than the girl herself.

 

Yizi had wanted the same. In her desire for an apprentice who would understand her pain she ignored the signs that Ezra was not what she thought.

 

"You have to abandon vanity," she explained. She shouldn't have had to explain anything, but pain and her own desires clouded her mind. Yizi touched the wound on her lip tentatively and raised the knife to her face again. She cut once more into the flesh as she held her lip away from her teeth and gum. Again she cried out, but this time she didn't pull the knife away. She continued until she was satisfied with the deep slice. Now the cut was completely through her lip, and the ragged, ruined skin framed her overlarge fang. When Yizi finally pulled her fingers and the knife away her chin and lower lip was dripping with black blood. It stained her white and tan fur and made her look grotesque. It took a while for her to catch her breath, but finally she continued. "It'll be stripped away from you eventually anyway. If you're good enough the Force will ruin you, or scars from your enemies will do it. I can't let that be a weakness. I have to do it first. And I have to show I'm devoted, even in pain. _Especially_ in pain."

 

"You have to stop," Ezra said quietly. He couldn't deny it any longer, not now. Yizi wasn't like him. Maybe a few things were similar--and that thought ripped through him like ice--but that didn't mean they were.

 

"I haven't even started," the Devaronian growled low and grabbed her lower lip. Again she pressed the blade to flesh, but under the spilled blood already coating her skin it was hard to tell when the knife truly cut into the skin. He knew it had when the bloodflow was suddenly stronger, when the black dripping off of her chin started dribbling into her cloak and clothes faster. She didn't cry out this time, and she didn't pull the knife away too soon. She kept cutting down along her lip, and down to slice part of her chin open. Yizi was trembling all over now, her panting was ragged as if they had been running again.

 

"Some use... tattoos..." she gasped. Ezra barely heard her. "I don't... I don't want that... I want scars. I want... want everyone to _see_..."

 

Yizi looked at Ezra, shaking and eyes too bright in the darkness. He was the first one who was going to see her devotion. The second would be her Master, he was sure. A shock of fear ripped through Ezra and he thought of the Inquisitor. Would her Master be like him? Or different? Would her Master somehow be worse?

 

 _Kanan, we need to leave_...

 

This time as Yizi held her upper lip she didn't look away from Ezra. He wondered if she had heard into his mind, as if she somehow hoped to send this image to Ezra's Master. The blade cut into her skin a third time. She shook as the wound was opened, tremors wracking her body as it begged her to stop the abuse. She ignored it and dug the knife in deeper. This cut was far easier than the first, and it followed the same path up her cheek to under her eye. It almost perfectly mirrored the first injury she had inflicted upon herself. Whether she was guided by the Force in her mutilation, or if she had simply practiced this grotesque rite in a mirror for so long to know the paths by heart, Ezra didn't know. It didn't matter. Knowing how wouldn't suddenly stitch her broken lips back together, her two large fangs would still be framed in torn flesh and coated with slick, black blood.

 

"Please, Yizi. Just stop," Ezra said it quietly, so quietly that the Devaronian's ragged breathing had nearly drowned it out. She watched him for a moment and it looked like she had broken through her pain, or that she had begun to truly accept it. She didn't answer him this time, but she didn't keep the same, unnerving stare she did before, either. Instead she just took her lower lip, the last part to make the scars symmetrical and to give a dip in her lip for her large fang to rest in. Once more the metal parted her skin, her body trembled as she carved through her own flesh, and her breathing hitched as the last wound was inflicted. She was bleeding badly from her mouth now, blood and saliva dripped down from her ruined lips, and when she panted Ezra could see that her blood had seeped into her mouth. Her tongue and all of her teeth were slick and dark with it now, as if she was retching up darkness from deep inside of her. She looked at him again, and for the first time Yizi really seemed to _see_ Ezra. Not just his body there but beyond it, the same way Ezra felt as though he could see under her skin and into the darkness inside of her. Destruction and pain, that was all she caused both to her surroundings and to herself. And what did she see in Ezra now? Hope? Light? Did the horror etched into his face make it obvious he wasn't like her, that he never would be? Maybe it did, because she slowly raised the knife and flipped it in her hand so the blade was no longer facing her. She moved her hand up, and--

 

Suddenly light flooded everything. Yizi snarled and pulled back from the source of the sudden, blinding light. Ezra winced himself, and in the blue glare he was able to see Yizi fully. Her face was ripped open, the wounds as neat as she was able to make them, but even so her skin was ragged at the edges of her new wounds. Almost all of her fur below her mouth was caked in black blood, it had dribbled down her chin and neck, to what was exposed of her chest, and was smeared over her hands and forearms. The glow did nothing to dispel the dark color of her blood. If anything it only seemed to enhance it, as though the shadows fell back from them but her mutilation could never be cast fully into the light. She sprang back from the light and from Ezra, ruined lips bared over bloodstained teeth, and she held the knife as though it was all she'd need to defend herself against a lightsaber.

 

Kanan didn't swing at her, though. He didn't have to. She was already creeping back away from them and he knelt down to cut through the binds holding Ezra tight. The wyzu fell in clumps where the severed plant had still managed to cling to itself, and with a yank from under his arm Kanan hauled Ezra back to his feet. The world lurched around Ezra horribly for a moment and his vision went gray, but slowly he came back to himself and he looked around. Yizi was watching them still, her posture more reminiscent of an animal than any sort of defensive stance. Kanan and Ezra both faced her and Ezra felt it when his Master leaned towards her, the start of an advance. Yizi had either seen it or sensed it, the next moment she flung her knife at Kanan's head hard and he jerked his blade up to knock the projectile away. As soon as the blinding light was out of Ezra's eyes, though, the Devaronian was nowhere to be seen. If she had gone up or down in the trees she hadn't made a sound, and if she was hiding he couldn't sense her. Kanan couldn't either, and after a few unsuccessful  minutes to wait her out he put his hand on Ezra's back and guided him away.


	7. Chapter 7

"I need to talk to you," Ezra said as firmly as he could, but even by trying to keep his voice level it still made his head twinge. He had told Kanan that several times during their trek back to the city and then to the Ghost, and every time Kanan had said the same thing.

 

"Not right now," Kanan said once more as he inspected the wounds on Ezra's face and head. He had brought Ezra back to his room to tend to his injuries away from the rest of the crew. Kanan was bandaging what he could and holding an ice pack against where Yizi had slammed Ezra's head back against the tree trunk. Ezra's stomach twisted as he thought of her, blood dripping off her face, angry and twisted and _wrong_.

 

"I need to talk to you!" the boy finally yelled, and his head screamed in pain at the sudden, loud noise. "I need you to know, I didn't mean to do anything wrong, I didn't think she was--that she could--I didn't know what she was! Kanan, I know you're angry at me, but I--"

 

Kanan hushed Ezra and put his hands on his shoulders, holding him still and pushing him back onto Zeb's bunk where Ezra had leaned too far forward in his outburst. "Ezra, I'm not angry. I'm worried about what's going to happen, that's all."

 

"But..." Ezra frowned, trembling a little under Kanan's hands.

 

"I don't blame you," Kanan said it firmly and surely, and Ezra nodded although he wasn't sure how Kanan could forgive him that easily.

 

"I thought... I thought she was like me," Ezra said quietly, he felt like he was admitting something obscene.

 

"It can seem like there are similarities on the surface," Kanan said it slowly and quietly, obviously picking his words carefully.

 

"She said..." Ezra frowned and looked away from Kanan, then closed his eyes. It was hard to remember exactly what it was Yizi had said. Between being hurt and horrified and begging her to stop he hadn't been any good at focusing on the words. "She said she had to do that, because... the Force would 'ruin her' anyway. That can't be right, can it? She didn't have to do that."

 

Ezra felt the bunk beside him dip and he looked over to Kanan. His Master was sitting beside him, his elbows on his knees and his fingers folded together where he rested his chin on them. His expression was hard to read and Ezra looked away again as he thought of a way to make up for what he just said.

 

"It... isn't true, for you and me," Kanan finally said.

 

"What do you mean?" Ezra frowned and glanced back to him.

 

Kanan closed his eyes and sighed,  "You have to understand, I don't really know anything about Sith. Nothing about why they do what they do, or how, or anything about that. For a long time they weren't even something I thought was real."

 

"You didn't think they were real?"

 

"You heard stories before you met me, right? About Jedi? Stories that made them sound like they were just heroes in tales, people that didn't really exist?"

 

Ezra nodded, then shifted a little, "Yeah."

 

"Well, Jedi younglings had stories too. Stories like the ones you heard, where something unimaginable somehow came from a grain of truth. I knew the Dark Side was very real, but actually giving yourself to it, becoming part of it, and _using_ it to that degree... that was something we used to tell each other when we were young to scare one another," Kanan looked toward the far wall without seeing it at all. He was far away, somewhere old and sad, and Ezra felt like he was intruding on something far too personal. "For a lot of Padawan and younglings in the beginning it was like the monsters from their nightmares came to life."

 

Ezra was quiet for a long while, not sure what to say. He wanted to ask about Kanan's young life so badly, but he didn't. "What... do you know? About them?"

 

Kanan seemed to suddenly remember his student beside him, and he looked at Ezra again instead of the wall. "Just the very basics. They use the Dark Side of the Force, and only that. There's no balance like I teach you. There's no good in them, just destruction and pain. They don't protect anything, or anyone. They only bring death."

 

"So she feels that coldness, all the time," Ezra said it quietly and more to himself than to Kanan. "How can she stand it?"

 

"I don't know. Most can't," Kanan sighed. "When Jedi fell they weren't always able to keep going. Usually they... just sort of lost themselves. Their minds, their sanity, their selves, everything that made them who they were was smothered. The Sith use the Dark the way Jedi use the Light. They let it flow through them and it makes them powerful. That might be what she meant when she said it would ruin her, the Force can protect and heal if used correctly. It wouldn't be a far stretch to assume it can destroy if used wrong."

 

"Is she going to try to kill us?" Ezra asked quietly. Again the Inquisitor came to his mind, the way he fought, the way he acted, the way Ezra couldn't compare to him and could barely hold his own even with Kanan there.

 

"Yes."

 

Ezra tucked a leg up unconsciously. He wanted to curl up and hide from everything. He wanted to pretend it wasn't happening. Instead he swallowed and forced out, "She has a Master."

 

There was a long stretch of silence that made Ezra feel strangely hollow, as if he was somehow too full of feelings and devoid of them all at once. Eventually Kanan wrapped his arm around Ezra's shoulders and he pulled his student close. Ezra tucked up close to Kanan, glad for the comfort, but dreading what he knew would come with it.

 

"Don't worry," Kanan said quietly. "I'll protect you, no matter what."

 

Ezra winced and closed his eyes tight, to him the promise was more of a threat.

 

\---

 

When Kanan had finally gotten Ezra to rest in his room he knew he shouldn't have told him as much as he did. None of it was comforting, and there was the strong likelihood that what sleep he'd get would be poor thanks to it. It made Kanan feel guilty and awkward, but part of him hoped that with his concussion Ezra would need to be told everything a second time. It would give Kanan a chance to better prepare himself for the questions with more proper answers.

 

"How bad it is?"

 

Kanan glanced up at Zeb and then back to the closed door of the Lasat's and Ezra's room. "Bad. He'll be alright, but the situation is..."

 

"How soon do we need to get out of here?" Zeb stepped aside to give Kanan room as he walked to the common room.

 

"About three hours ago would have been good," Kanan sighed.

 

"That's not happening," Zeb said as he followed Kanan. "We going to be safe here until we get the all-clear to head out?"

 

"Maybe," Kanan frowned as he thought. "The apprentice saw both of us, but if she watched us board I doubt she or her Master would have waited this long to attack. To be safe neither of us should leave the Ghost. But I think you, Hera, Chopper and Sabine are still unknown."

 

"I can head out, see if I can find out about when the city will let us leave."

 

Kanan nodded and looked back to him, "Sounds good, but even so you should be safe. Don't go alone. I think Sabine's still at the cleanup site, meet up with her first."

 

\---

 

"Looks like someone finally remembered me," said Sabine as she looked up to the higher level. The loss of two of the crew she had been volunteering with hadn't actually been a terrible loss to the foreman. If anything it gave her an excuse to take Sabine away from hauling wood and keep her with as a translator. Getting abuse from whatever random person who wanted to yell at the Kallilo that they clearly cleaned enough of the mess to be allowed to leave the planet before any others without penalty didn't seem like it would do much to improve Sabine's mood, but it actually was quiet satisfying to embellish the foreman's polite answers to be something sharper and far more fitting. After all, the language was hard for most to pick up so those that needed her to translate really didn't know better, and the few that did knew enough of the language knew most of what Sabine was saying matched up. She wasn't altering the important bits at all, just making the phrases a bit more... colorful. Keeping her helmet on helped with that too, the expressionless visor hid when she rolled her eyes and the pauses as she thought how best to tell someone to shut up and go away were written off as part of her translating.

 

Zeb jumped down to the walkway Sabine was on, the intertwined branches shaking a little with his weight, but not enough to jostle Sabine. "Kid found some trouble when he ran off."

 

"Yeah?" Sabine smiled a little, feeling more like herself than she had during the last few days as she picked her way across planks stretched across one walkway to another.

 

"We're going to need to know how soon we can leave."

 

Sabine frowned and looked back to Zeb again, really taking in his expression this time. He was strained and worried, easily on-edge. His bo-rifle was off of his back and in the gun configuration, held in one hand like he expected trouble. Something happened, and it wasn't the kind of thing he could say out loud in public or he would have already.

 

"I can ask about it," Sabine said and she moved to another plank, one that would take her away on a more direct path to the foreman. Not to ask her directly, but find out who she can direct some of the questions to. The plank she was walking on shuddered a moment, and she looked up to the far end of it. Someone else was walking along it, cloak drawn and hood up, looking for all the world like a person wandering while lost in thought. Sabine hadn't seen them at first, but she hadn't started on this path and by now she was fairly used to the sort of mindless actions that volunteers made.

 

"You need to turn around," she called out to the figure, but they didn't respond. They didn't slow, and Sabine sighed as she started running through the nonverbal languages she knew. Sabine continued along the plank, and when the other person was just a bit away they stopped. They had finally seen her, and Sabine tucked the datapad she had under her arm to use both of her hands. If this language didn't work she'd find another, but it was the most widely used. ' _You need to turn around and go back._ '

 

There was a long pause and Sabine sighed, taking the datapad to start writing on it instead. Halfway through the other person spoke.

 

"I have a message for your friend."

 

"What?" Sabine frowned and looked back up to them--the voice was high but with a warble of pain in it that made it hard to determine anything much more than that they could talk. The person came closer and Sabine's hand dropped to one of her blasters. What happened next was in a flash, the cloaked figure charged and the hood flew back, the face under it nothing but white and tan covered in cracked black scabs. A flash of red and the plank Sabine was on was cut while the other person sprang to a nearby one. Sabine twisted as she fell, taking aim, and firing at her assailant. The plank the cloaked figure was on shuddered as it broke and they both were cast down.


	8. Chapter 8

Sabine was able to correct herself as she fell, and a by grabbing one of the thick, twisted wyzu vines she was able to land on one of the few platforms of broken branches still intact this far from the other living trees. There were still a few workers, someone called out to her as she scanned the branches and trees in the dim light. It was always oppressive in the forest like this, but with this part of the city deserted and destroyed it was worse than usual. Someone screamed, Sabine didn't hear what it was and she didn't see anything but she still bolted, and she jumped to a huge broken stretch of branches. It wasn't stable, and it slid under her weight, but it didn't fall to the forest floor and she looked back over her shoulder at where she had been.

 

The platform she had been on was sliced in half, the neat line of the cut scorched black and dying red embers still clinging to the wood. Standing on what was left of it was the one that attacked her, the cloak open now as she gripped the tree trunk with the claws on one hand and held her weapon with the other. It too just a moment for Sabine to register what she was against. Devaronian. Female. Injured. The other snarled and braced against the tree to jump after Sabine, the blade of her lightsaber making a wide red arch as she readied another strike.

 

Sabine took out her second blaster and aimed, firing both in rapid succession before retreating back. The girl twisted to block the shots and lost her trajectory, grabbing onto a branch to avoid an uncalculated fall into the darkness. It didn't last long and she charged again, this time keeping her feet on the branches and lumber for quick correction. Sabine fired again, and it gave her some slight idea of how to handle the situation. The girl wasn't blocking everything, she was dodging the blaster fire more often than keeping her straight route to her target. Sabine's best bet would be to keep distance between them and take advantage of her long-range weapons versus the mid-range one the other had. It was a lot easier to plan for that than to implement that, though. The kid could move fast, faster than anything should have been able to. Kanan didn't do things like that often, and he taught Ezra to maintain a sense of normalcy about his actions when danger presented itself, but this girl didn't need to be cautious. Why would she? She was Imperial property on Empire territory. Sabine continued to fire at the Devaronian and climb but the distance between them still closed too fast. The red light glared too bright in the dim surroundings and it was threatening to blind Sabine as the girl attempted to strike at her face. Up wasn't an option now and Sabine jumped down to the lower branches. She didn't have time to aim, Sabine just fired above her in the path she had fallen. There was a scream and she took that as her reward for fast action, running without looking to see where the girl would call or how badly she was hit.

 

Sabine climbed again, grabbing and landing on branches and wood that sagged and crumbled under her. It didn't matter, as long as she could keep going up she was fine. There was movement above her and she paused for a fraction of a second. Just as quickly she was moving up again, though. Zeb was working his way down the huge tree trunk, she was close enough it would just be faster to join him and go up together, but at least she knew she had backup now.

 

Zeb saw her, eyes wide, and he raised his bo-rifle and fired towards her. It took more trust than Sabine thought she had in her not to duck but to keep running towards him. The blast was over her shoulder, too close to her helmet for comfort, but it passed her by to the real target. There was an unnatural sound behind her, the blast hit something--and the next moment Sabine was forced forward too hard. It had been deflected back to her as the girl chased her, the blast had hit the back of Sabine's helmet. Her ears rang, her head was rattled, but she still twisted to roll over and fire at the Devaronian again. She got a few shots out before her hands were wrenched out of position.

 

Zeb was snarling, making his way fast and loudly through the branches of the trees, but he wasn't nearly close enough. The girl had a foot on one of Sabine's wrists and her hand was clasped around the other, with her knee digging into the Mandaloran's gut. It was hard to breathe and the lightsaber was just a hair away from her visor.

 

"Tell the Jedi to come to the gallows tree. If they don't, it will be worse," the girl growled down at her. In the fight her scabs had cracked and there were swells of fresh blood starting to drip from her face.

 

"How could it be worse than this?"

 

The brilliant light was gone and in its absence the darkness seemed to swallow them both whole. Sabine tried to move, but the body holding hers down didn't relent, and when the metal of the lightsaber was wedged between her helmet and shoulder plate she froze.

 

"Tell the Jedi to come to the gallows tree, or this worthless planet will _burn_ and so will everything on it."

 

There was a sudden jerk from above Sabine as the girl pulled back roughly. Sabine rolled away quickly, raising her blasters again, and the blast aimed at the girl that had been above her barely missed her. Sabine looked around at the source of the shot--Zeb--and then around quickly to try and find the girl again. Either she was hiding or gone, and Sabine was willing to bet gone.

 

"Where are they?"

 

"I don't know, but we need to get out of here," Sabine said as she shoved herself up from the tangled branch floor, reaching up to grab Zeb's arm when he tried to stalk part her. Zeb paused and looked down at her, clearly torn between the retreat and chasing down the brat that had attacked them. He finally relented and they both turned back to find their way back up the trees.

 

\- - -

 

Once they were back on the main walkways Zeb used his com to call Ezra and Kanan. The threat that the girl would still be lurking around and follow them to the ship was strong enough to make them want to be cautious of revealing the whereabouts of the Ghost and who was on it.

 

"Specter 1 here," the com chirped and Zeb glanced at Sabine before talking.

 

"We had some trouble, Specter 1."

 

"Did you get 5?" Kanan's voice was tense even through the neutral tone he tried to use normally.

 

Sabine shifted to take out her own com and speak into it, "I'm here."

 

There was a pause and then Kanan continued, "Good. So what was the trouble?"

 

"Got caught up with Specter 6's friend," Sabine answered. "Seems like she wants to see you, said you should go to the gallows tree. Pretty sure you should go anywhere but there."

 

There was a long pause, enough that Zeb was shifting on his feet and watching the com impatiently and Sabine almost tried to talk again to make sure he was still there.

 

"I'll take care of this, Specter 1 out," Kanan's voice was cold when he finally spoke up.

 

"What are you going to do, mate?" Zeb asked. This time there wasn't a reply waiting, and the two of them gritted their teeth and looked at each other. This wasn't going to end well.

 

\- - -

 

What it was exactly that stirred Ezra out of his painkiller-assisted doze he wasn't sure. He didn't question it, either. Ezra always trusted himself, his instincts, it was what kept him alive and fed when he was on his own for so long. 'Awake' wasn't the right word for what was happening to him, not really. He sat up, he dragged his boots back to himself and pulled them on, he grabbed his lightsaber, but he didn't feel awake during any of it. Ezra watched his hands as he moved for a few short minutes, but closed them when the meds made him too drowsy to keep his eyes opened anymore. It didn't matter. Habit helped him find the buckles on his boot, and helped his saber hilt find the hook on his belt. When he stood and walked to the door he felt like he was still asleep, or perhaps dreaming something oddly boring, but didn't bother opening his eyes more than once as he started down the ladder. He didn't need to.

 

"Ezra?"

 

At Hera's voice Ezra tried to break the gentle daze settled over him for a moment. She sounded concerned even as tired as she was and Ezra's first reaction was to defend his actions or soothe her worries. But what exactly were his actions? He didn't know when he started out, but as soon as he thought of it he knew, as if the answer had always been there, and Ezra and answered as he slipped back into the hazy mindset, "I'm going with Kanan."

 

Ezra felt more than heard Hera's relief. She was too exhausted to fully hear the drowsy calmness of Ezra's voice. After a soft word from Hera that Ezra didn't hear he continued down the ladder and out of the Ghost entirely. It wasn't just Hera he was feeling now, he could feel the hum of the people in Deep City around him and below him. The panic and unease from the support tree's destruction had all but died down, replaced mostly with irritation and resignation. Those people weren't what he came out for, though. He felt the swirl of emotions and life below him and with his eyes still closed he left it behind.

 

The path he followed wasn't one he had ever used before. It wasn't a path at all. The neat woven branches of the hangar gave way to long, thick branches that were left to grow wild and tangle themselves together naturally. Ezra's feet found the bumps and grooves in the twisted bark better this his eyes ever would have been able to. Like this the lack of light didn't matter. The green glow from the canopy or the glittering phosphorescence from the fauna didn't matter. Nothing was there to distract him as he walked. The curve under Ezra's boot told him he had made his way onto a lone branch or perhaps a huge and age-thickened length of wyzu. The gentle sounds of the animals and the forest sighed softly around Ezra, the life force in each creature that peeked out at him or ignored him singing around him. Like this it was easy to give in to the painkillers still in his system and the warmth that pulled him along and found him safe places to walk.

 

Ezra kept his eyes closed and his feet moving as he trusted in the Force to guide him to where he needed to be.


	9. Chapter 9

The gallows tree was a monument to death. From a distance the fresher bodies there could be seen hanging on display, but upon closer inspection that wasn't the only things that still dangled in the vines. Usually the limbs that were pulled from the decaying convicts would fall to the forest floor and, ironically, made both the gallows tree and the plant life around it more vibrant and alive than the trees that made up the city. Sometimes, though, the vines didn't always let go of the limb that it grabbed a hold of. Every so often, bundled in the vines and half-hidden between flowers and buds, there were large bones hanging like horrid decorations. They were always stripped of flesh from hungry insects and animals looking for a meal, some with teeth marks scraped over the bone and others with holes chewed through the bones and down to the marrow. Even without meat to rot, though, the bones still stank like death.

 

Kanan gave the bones as little thought as he could manage as he walked through the dangling vines and over the tangled branches. The foliage here, like down near the muddy forest floor, was unkempt and left to go wild. The sounds of the forest drowned out his footsteps on the rough bark, animals made noises to one another and bugs droned on, and there was a constant, soft hissing sound that almost seemed to be the sound of the mass of wyzu vines sliding over the trees and itself as it continued growing. He made it to the gully in the branches, a large hole cut through the flora where the vines would always eventually drag the executed to. It gave them no chance to find their footing and get away, there was nothing below them normally. A thin mesh of branches and vines had grown over the long drop to the ground below in the time since the last hanging, and on that mesh stood a single figure. It was too tense, even from as far away as he was Kanan could see it trembling with too much emotion to contain, and he could feel the darkness that poured out of it.

 

It wasn't the only dark thing, though. He looked up, leaving the still and seething child below to fixate instead on the body across the ditch from him. This one was still enough to be mistaken for one of the bodies hanging and rotting by a noose of living plant, or a shadow from one of those bodies if there had been enough light to cast one. No tremors of excitement or anger or fear came from it. It barely seemed to move to breathe, and the formless cloak and raised hood hid any sort of identity. Darkness did not pour out of this one, it didn't ring itself to ooze it's evil into the surrounding area. It simply existed, dark and cold and hopeless as a black hole, and terribly content with all of that.

 

"Have you forgotten your apprentice?"

 

The voice was soft and, in a human or near-human range, feminine. She gestured with a hand that parted her cloak and it offered Kanan a glimpse of a slight frame clothed in even more black cloth and close armor.

 

"Who are you?" Kanan asked harshly. He wasn't going to talk about Ezra, not here and not now and not to her.

 

"A teacher, like yourself," the woman answered, and Kanan's skin crawled at the note of amusement in her voice now. "And alone, for the moment."

 

"That's that supposed to mean?" Kanan said and glanced back down to the child below. It still hadn't moved, other than to tremble with hate and need.

 

"It means I have come here to test the abilities of my apprentice," the woman gestured down to the child. Kanan's stomach twisted and clenched, he had known the moment he saw the child what they were, but having it confirmed seemed to make it so much worse. "And I wished to see her succeed or fail without an audience. Your appearance has offered a singular opportunity. I propose a challenge, your apprentice and mine will duel, and the victors shall leave."

 

"You wanted to make them fight to the death?" Kanan's eyes narrowed at the child, pity creeping in at the edge of his mind. Could this child even fight well enough to do that? She looked the same age as Ezra, had her training been any better, any longer? And if it had been, what then?

 

"Perhaps,"  the woman broke through Kanan's thoughts with ease. "Kittakara will most certainly kill your boy should she be able to. Would your Padawan do the same?"

 

"He isn't--"

 

"Kanan?"

 

Kanan froze at the sound of his name, so quiet behind him he nearly missed it. Training and a lifetime of survival told him not to turn his back to the woman, even with the huge hole through the branches between them. He ignored it, though, and turned back to look behind him. There Ezra stood, bits of bark and debris from the hanging vines in his hair and on his shoulders. Thankfully just bits of leaves, buds, and blooming flowers, not chips from the bones that hung around them. Kanan went to him and crouched some so he was on eye level with Ezra, pushing hair back from his face to look at him. Ezra's eyes were dazed, not even aware enough to be confused, and Kanan had to fight the urge not to make Ezra run.

 

"You can't be here, you need to go," Kanan hissed low, not wanting his voice to carry to the other two. "They want you to fight."

 

"I can fight."

 

" You're still hurt," Kanan tilted Ezra's head up to look at him, and frowned. Ezra was coming back to himself, becoming more awake and more alert. Kanan turned Ezra's head some and slide his fingers through the hair on the back of the boy's head, feeling for the swelling and the gash that had been there before. There was nothing there now beyond a thin line of skin that felt too smooth and easily hidden in his hair. Kanan was still for a moment, taking in the sudden lack of an injury that he had cleaned and tended to before, and he pulled Ezra close without thinking of it. He wanted to keep him from this, he _had_ to, there was no way he was going to toss Ezra down into a pit and expect him to fight or die.

 

"Kanan..." Ezra put his hand on his Master's arm, not pushing him away but he wasn't going to be hidden and coddled. Kanan slowly let him go and stood up again. He wasn't going to force Ezra to fight, but he had to let him do it if that's what Ezra chose. Kanan turned back and together they went to the edge of the branches.

 

"You've finally arrived," the woman noted, and he waved her hand down towards her apprentice again. "Join Kittakara below, and we will see who's abilities are superior."

 

Ezra was still, and Kanan could feel the doubt and the fear in his student starting to swell. Ezra glanced to Kanan, he was trying hard to be brave but it felt like it simply wasn't enough. "Do you think I can win?"

 

Kanan didn't know the answer to that. But that didn't matter, because he knew the answer Ezra needed. He nodded "You've healed up. You can."

 

There was a moment when Ezra was unmoving, and then he took a deep breath and nodded and he went to the edge to jump down below. The branches here were weak, and he stumbled some as he kept on his feet. Like a giant web the whole unsteady floor moved with his movement, and it made the girl stagger and have to put a foot back to regain her balance. A mutilated face framed in tan and white fur turned towards Ezra. Too-big fangs bared in a snarl without sound.

 

"Yizi," Ezra started, but he was cut short when the girl nearly screamed at him.

 

"Don't call me that!" She gripped something from her belt and suddenly there was a flash of blinding red light. It made her fur go red and the scars on her face look deeper and darker and worse than before. Or, perhaps, they simply were worse. Ezra had healed from his injuries, but hers had only gotten worse, more startling, as through her skin was even now still being cut into. "My name is Kittakara."

 

It dawned on Ezra that she was waiting for something. She didn't charge when she drew her lightsaber, she just stayed put, and in the new light Ezra could see the difference in what she was wearing. Her cloak was gone, alone with the wrappings on her feet. Instead she wore heavy boots and armor at her elbows and knees, a breastplate and pauldrons. She was dressed for a battle that Ezra hadn't prepared for, but even if he had known what was coming he didn't have the luxury of extra equipment for something like this. All he had was himself and his own lightsaber. He took it from his belt and the blue shined bright, lighting up more of the forest than the red did.

 

Above them the woman spoke simply, "Begin."

 

Kittakara charged. Ezra hadn't expected her speed, she was like a coil twisted too tight and finally given release. Ezra twisted and raised his lightsaber, a poor move to parry but one Kittakara hadn't been any better prepared against, and he avoided her first lunge. Kittakara's speed and the extra weight from her armor were against her and it gave Ezra a chance to put more space between them. Even if Kanan wasn't down here to help Ezra felt better being closer to his side of the pit than the Devaronian's Master. The girl came for him again, and this time Ezra was ready for her. He came at her instead of retreating, and the red and blue blades screamed at the hard contact when they met. Ezra's greatest fear had been that this girl would be more refined than him, that she would be stronger and faster and more skilled. She was faster, definitely, maybe even stronger, but she wasn't any better prepared for a fight like this. Her stance was as juvenile as Ezra's, and like him when she was met head-on she jumped back to give herself more room for a new charge.

 

This time Ezra didn't give it to her. He lunged after her with a hard strike that she barely got onto her feet to deflect.

 

"It's enviable, isn't it?" the woman said above the battling kids, and it took Kanan too long to realize she was talking to him and not just to herself. "Their connection to the Force is stronger than ours. When the Jedi were purged children like this came to be, as though the galaxy was trying to right itself. There are so very few of them and a power that should be distributed to thousands is concentrated to only a few. It makes me wonder how many more children there are like this, and how much stronger they must be."

 

"I don't," Kanan said roughly. He didn't want to think of other children powerful in the Force with no one to guide them. He didn't want to think of any of them falling prey to people who would abuse their abilities.


	10. Chapter 10

The longer the fight went on the clearer it was that the Devaronian was taking her lack of an easy win badly. She became reckless and undisciplined, losing what control she had to the heat of the battle but without enjoyment of the fight. Ezra seemed to have been doing better simply from the fact that he was maintaining his concentration better, but it didn't mean their power gap got any better. The reckless abandonment of Kittakara's defenses kept her coming back faster from Ezra's dodges and blocks, and without Ezra's determination to land a possibly life-ending blow she wasn't paying the price for her mistakes. She was pushing him back, strokes close enough to his face one moment that Ezra was sure he'd have a new scar later, and sometimes as far away as to slice apart some of the vines and weak branches holding them up. Every small loss of their footing the kids could feel, they stumbled as they moved, Ezra seeking safer footing and Kittakara oblivious to the danger a drop from their height posed.

 

"Stop!" Ezra yelled when one of the main support vines severed under the red blade. It was getting to the point now that there was more damage than safe places to put their feet. "I don't want to hurt you!"

 

There was a fraction of a moment where Ezra waited for a response, and that sliver of time was enough for her to close the distance between them and kick him hard in the stomach. Ezra tumbled backwards, wind knocked out of him, his abdomen a ring of pain from the heavy boot the girl wore. He scrambled up again but he was still doubled over and trying to catch his breath. The only slightly good thing about the kick was that it had finally given him some space away from her.

 

"You don't want to hurt me?" Kittakara snarled across the improvised arena. She gripped the hilt of her lightsaber with both hands and twisted it roughly. The bottom piece of the hilt came off with a loud click and as she squeezed it another flash of red came. The second blade was significantly smaller, no longer than the length of her hand from wrist to fingertip. "Then you're going to die."

 

Far from worrying Ezra the appearance of the second blade offered him some much-needed insight. This was how Kittakara wanted to fight, then. She wanted to be close to her opponent, offer no chance of escape, she was closing in on him again. But she wasn't the only one hiding another weapon. The bright blue blade was gone in a blink, darkness swallowing Ezra whole and hiding him for the bright moment before Kittakara's eyes adjusted. He didn't give her a chance to see him again before he raised his blaster and fired between the two red blades. The shot was met with a scream, more of rage than of pain, and the ruined vine floor shuddered when the Devaronian fell to her knees. Too soon, though, the living floor was moving again, shifting as the girl stood and shaking violently as she ran towards Ezra in the dark. He had hit her, Ezra knew that, but it was on her breastplate and that hadn't been enough to bring her down. He fired again between the flashing arcs of red, moving back as he did so. A shot was deflected. Another dodged. She was moving too fast, coming too close. Ezra's left foot came down on a weak spot in the cut branches and he crumpled as weight betrayed him. Kittakara raised her lightsaber high for the final strike.

 

Ezra simply reacted. His hands moved faster than he could have hoped to move them if he had thought about it. His free hand latched onto the girl's wrist where she still held the glowing dagger, and his blaster went up to shove the hard metal against the soft skin of her throat directly below her jaw. Kittakara froze, eyes wide and face distorted by the grotesque scars and her enraged expression. Her long blade was up too high for her to do anything about this without being shot first and she knew it.

 

"Drop them," Ezra gasped. His voice was rough from the hit before. Kittakara only stared at him, gauging if he really would shoot. Ezra's grip tightened on her wrist and he pressed his blaster harder against her throat as he steeled himself to fire. The Devaronian snarled and dropped her weapons, the red blades tumbling and slicing apart more of the vines and branches around them. They continued to fall past the weakened flooring and down toward the dark floor of the forest, the red lgiht disappearing sometime before they landed into the mud below. Ezra kept his eyes on her, unblinking in the darkness, as he pushed her back from him. She moved slowly, stepping back, and Ezra pulled his trapped leg up carefully from the vines so he could stand and back away from her. This had to be over, she didn't have her weapons anymore, they weren't going to keep going like this, right?

 

"We're done," Ezra called up above them even as he kept his eyes on the girl. She snarled, her face seeming to split open to show him as many teeth as she could. In a moment of bravado Ezra added on, "You lost."

 

That had been the wrong thing to say. Even without her lightsaber Kittakara still charged. Her boots stumbled on the vines, fists clenched, fangs bared. Ezra didn't fire this time, his brought his lightsaber blade to life and sliced one of the few stable parts of the flooring left. A thick tree branch in it was cut and gave way, and with it Kittakara stumbled and fell. She screamed, fingers tearing at the air for something to hold onto as she fell. There was a loud sound as her body came into contact with a gnarled branch and the screaming stopped, followed by a few more heavy thuds that faded in volume the farther away they got. Ezra stared at where she had been, a kid as old as him, already so full of anger and ruined. Maybe not forever, but if she was gone, if she had died--and it felt like the only outcome at the way her snarling had stopped as her body hit the trees below--then that was how she had ended. Angry and cold and...

 

"Are you still down there?"

 

Ezra looked up at the sound of Kanan's worried voice. He nodded, then swallowed down the lump in his throat to try to speak, "I'm here! I'm still here."

 

"A pity," the woman's voice drifted down to Ezra and he shuddered. He looked around to find a way up. Jumping down into the pit was easy enough, but getting back up looked like it was going to be a lot more difficult. He crept along the branch he was on slowly, and when a vine snapped and he could feel himself sinking down too far too fast. He yelped and reached for a sturdy-looking branch to hold onto, but it sloughed off its bark the moment too much of Ezra's weight was applied to it. The boy yelled out, and suddenly was silenced when he was pulled up by nothing. The fact he had felt it before was the only reason Ezra was able to relax then. He was as safe as could be expected in the hold, Kanan had him, and soon Ezra was able to stand in front of his master again on sturdier branches. Ezra turned to look behind him, and then held his lightsaber hilt harder.

 

"Where is she?" Ezra asked louder than he meant to.

 

"I don't know," Kanan answered and he put his hand on Ezra's back to guide him away. "Not close. Probably down looking for her apprentice."

 

"Do you think she could still be alive?" Ezra muttered as he craned his neck to look down into the pit below. There was enough damage done to the new growth that it was just a black maw now. Kanan didn't answer, he simply put more pressure on Ezra's back to pull him away and take him back to the Ghost.

 

\- - -

 

"Do you want me to never trust you again? With anything?" Hera greeted Kanan with when he and Ezra came into the common room. Zeb came after them, he had been sitting just inside the hangar door to wait for them and keep anyone who shouldn't be on the Ghost out of it.

 

"Saying you trusted me before?" Kanan smiled at her, apologetic instead of playful and he rubbed his hands together just for something to do with them.

 

Hera managed a smile back at him, then popped something into her mouth and turned to pick up a cup of caf to wash it down, "Barely."

 

"Something to help you sleep?" Kanan asked.

 

"No," Hera shook her head, "Something to wake me up enough to fly us out of here."

 

"I thought we couldn't leave," Ezra piped up. After the somber walk back to the Ghost the fact everything seemed to be _normal_ threw him some.

 

"We couldn't, but then I was attacked at the construction site," Sabine said as she came in and leaned on the back of the seat Hera was in. "After that, for our own safety, we were given an early departure pass. Pretty sure it was just to get us off planet early in case we were the reason someone blew the tree up."

 

"No doubt about it," Zeb shrugged. "But I prefer getting kicked out to  just about anything else that could have happened."

 

"Mmhm," Sabine nodded and looked down to Hera, "Everything's ready for takeoff, just need you."

 

"If we can get out of here, I can--" Kanan started, and Hera held up a hand quickly.

 

"Oh no, you can't," she said firmly as she pushed herself up from the table. She still wasn't as coordinated as usual, but whatever stimulants Hera had taken were kicking in and she was a lot more like herself than she had been during the rest of their time on Kalliu. "You're lucky I don't lock you in your room after that. I wouldn't have even known that you'd left if Ezra hadn't said something."

 

Kanan looked over at Ezra and the boy shrugged with a nervous grin. He could tell they were going to have a discussion later about _how_ exactly Ezra had known enough to say anything at all. Maybe he was getting better at being able to tell the future.

 

"You're lucky I have better things to do than punish you," Hera said warningly as she left to head to the cockpit.

 

"I don't," Zeb grinned and leaned in closer. Kanan took a half-step from him, hands up and about to say something, before Sabine came in from behind and punched his back. Kanan winced and rolled his shoulder before reaching back and trying to rub over the bruise.

 

"I think you got me with the metal," Kanan groaned out.

 

"That's what you get for keeping secrets like that," Sabine said as she went to follow Hera.

 

"And for running off without us," Zeb added, hitting Kanan's armored shoulder with a chuckle as he left. Despite the mild abuse Kanan smiled, and Ezra grinned with him. Even after everything they were alright, they were home, and they had done what needed to be done to keep the other safe--even if they didn't like it.

 

"Come on, let's join them," Kanan said, abandoning rubbing his back in favor of patting Ezra's shoulder to urge him along.

 

"I wonder what Chopper's going to do to you when he finds out everyone got to hit you," Ezra laughed as he followed everyone else.

 

"Oh, don't even joke about something like that."


	11. Chapter 11

"You have been a disappointment for as long as I have had you, Kittakara."

 

The words no longer stung. They did, once, when the Devaronian had been younger and angrier and desperate for any way to be superior to the rest of the galaxy. The past few weeks on the miserable ball of mud her Master had brought her to had taught her enough of her own strength at this point that she knew she _was_ a disappointment. Not only because she lost to the Jedi but because of the missteps that to that failure.

 

"Raise your arm."

 

The girl was laying on her stomach and face on the cold medical table. No bacta bath, not yet--if she even got it at all. He had to feel this, every ache and every bruise. She wasn't offered a kindness in making her comfortable, but as the medical droids prodded and stabbed and mended her broken body she knew she didn't need that comfort. She obeyed with difficulty, raising one hand slowly. It shook and trembled badly with the exertion, but it was up, and considering the injuries she had sustained from her fall and the pain still wracking her body it was a triumph.

 

"Now the other. It isn't your skill that I find lacking. It isn't your connection to the Force, that is far stronger than even you know. It isn't your fighting. You can learn the stances, you can take the pain I put you through, you can become faster and stronger should you put your mind to it."

 

Kittakara obeyed again, settling her arm down to raise the second. The soft words from her Master resonated with the pain throbbing through her, with her own heartbeat pounding in every bruise and broken bone and laceration yet to be mended. Her Master had always told her she was a disappointment, but this, what she had been doing _right_ , was new. She wanted to hear more of it.

 

"Bend your leg."

 

"I still can't feel it, Master..."

 

"I said do it."

 

Kittakara winced like she had been struck. She hardly was outside of her lessons, though. She simply felt the pure loathing in every word. She tried once to move her leg and failed with a cry. Her Master stayed silent and the Devaronian felt something twist in her like a hot and riled serpent clawing at her insides. Kittakara grabbed the edges of the table, panting raggedly and not giving herself any time to recover from the flare of pain before she attempted to move her leg again. This time she trembled, she cried out, but her knee bent and her foot and shin left the table.

 

"Now the other. You've always been able to pick yourself up, patch yourself back together. If I allowed you the time to you could at least become adequate in every weapon you came to hold. You are adaptive, but that has had a terrible effect on you."

 

As she moved her leg down and began to raise the second Kittakara screamed. The pain turned into a blackness at the edge of her vision, it made the shine of the metal table under her blur into an indistinct mass of gray. It didn't matter how loud she screamed, though. Her Master's words still rang in her ears, in her mind, as if the woman talking had no need for her physical voice at all.

 

"You let go of things too fast. Not just skills you deem unnecessary, but your emotions too. I've seen you do it. I have seen you look at me with such a burning anger and hatred, and in the next moment it is simply gone. Your anger, your hatred, your pain," The woman's fingers started at the back of Kittakara's neck and moved down. She touched the tan fur and the sticky black blood, fingertips dancing along open incisions from the medical droids that were immediately sterilized by those droids after. The pain of being touched and extra medication--but not anything to dull the pain--made Kittakara's mind go blank. A moment stretched into eternity of agony. Her raised leg dropped back down too hard and her body added yet another echo of blinding pain. This is all there was. Agony in the darkness. Life nothing more than a fragile and pitiful thing tethered to the galaxy by the hold of the Force, perhaps lengthened and improved by metal and medication, but not by much, and never for long.

 

"This time it's remained." Her Master's words came to her in the darkness. _From_ the darkness. "That hatred I've seen burn out in your eyes too many times has finally stayed. It's no longer faltering, you're no longer giving it up before you even manage to feed it. Your anger, your hatred, your _pain_..."

 

There was so much pain. More than Kittakara thought her body could handle, it was as though she was being pulled towards death and life at once and everything inside of her was shredding from the force of it.

 

"It's finally stayed. It's become a part of you. You have the ability now to be as strong as you desire. You have the power now to be death itself."

 

Kittakara reveled in the words. It was power beyond what she thought she could have before, but now? Now she knew. It wasn't just power she _could_ have. It was power she _deserved_. Her body didn't just feel pain now, it _was_ pain. She was pain. And, one day, that tug-of-war inside of her would cease. Her body would be carved out and cold and dark, and she would carry death inside of her where life used to reside.

 

"Face me."

 

She didn't argue this time. She moved slowly but surely, her broken body animated beyond merely physical means as she braced her hands against the table and pushed. Her legs bent again, folding under her slowly. Was she screaming again? Maybe. It didn't matter. She couldn't hear it, all she could hear was her Master's voice, soft but harsh, constant, commanding. _Face me_. She did. Kittakara braced her hands on the table and raised her head up on a neck that felt like it was full of broken glass and twisted metal to look her Master in the eyes. The medical droid advised against the patient moving, but neither paid it any mind. There was a long time where the two simply watched each other, the time was lost on Kittakara who couldn't feel it anymore in her agony. Finally her Master smiled and sat by her apprentice in the now clear space on the medical table. She touched the student's face, stroking over new wounds, and took a scalpel from the droid to start carving the jagged edges of her injuries into something neat.

 

"Jagged wounds heal faster and knit together better than smooth ones. You don't want that."

 

"No..." Kittakara growled. Her voice was no longer her own. It was somehow too thick and too high at once, it was clogged with pain and, Kittakara realized as her Master brushed a hand over her wet cheek to clear them away, tears.  It was an animal's snarl being lent to a sentient.

 

"What is it you hate more than any other?" It was asked as though they were having a pleasant time, as though the Master was brushing a knot out of Kittakara's fur instead of slicing the cuts on her chin deeper and cleaner. Blood flowed over her Master's robes, but it hardly mattered on the black cloth.

 

"The boy..." Kittakara's eyes lolled madly, as though she expected to see the Padawan standing in some corner of the medical bay. The droid resumed healing the damage to her spine and Kittakara gurgled at the new and intrusive sensations. Her eyes unfocused and her mouth opened, saliva dripping down her chin with her blood.

 

"You don't know his name." It wasn't chiding, as the girl might have assumed before now. No, it was just something to remind her of, a fact that was there. A problem to be solved. Kittakara's eyes roved back to her Master, wide and mad, the perfect match for her face covered in gore and tears and drool.  The girl's lips twisted, her teeth displayed brilliantly in the artificial light with her blood offering a grotesque dark frame for each one.

 

"I'll find it," Kittakara whispered. Her voice held more than venom in it. It held darkness and a cruel promise. It was the beginning of something great and terrible. "I'll find _him_."

 

Her Master smiled at her and put the scalpel to her cheek. She carved in a new line under her eye, something to add to the pattern. A keepsake for when the child grew away from her teacher, or if Kittakara ever managed to kill her.

 

"Yes. You will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, kudo'd, and commented! It's been fun having an OC again and writing stuff for her, and I'm glad other people were entertained too!


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